Talking to your children about sexual assault might not be an easy conversation for a lot of parents. It may not even occur to some if their child is still young. When should you say something? How do you find the right words to avoid scaring them or leaving them bewildered and confused? Maybe that’s exactly how […]

Thirty years ago, my beloved grandmother — her name was Joanna Tenney, but we called her Nanny — had a massive stroke and died a few days later. She had congestive heart failure and had been under treatment in the hospital for about a week when she had the stroke. I didn’t know it at […]

For the first time ever, there are now guidelines for preventing strokes in women. A stroke, which is also known as a brain attack, happens when blood suddenly stops flowing to the brain. The most common reason why is because a clot has formed inside a blood vessel. About 20 percent of the time, a stroke […]

Kidney stones are usually pretty small, but they sure can pack a big wallop. Wendy McGregor, who passed her first kidney stone 30 years ago and has had a least a dozen stones since, says the pain can be unbearable. “I always know when it’s coming on,” she says, “because there is a certain area […]

Diane Atwood

For more than 20 years, Diane was the health reporter on WCSH 6. Before that, a radiation therapist at Maine Medical Center and after, Manager of Marketing/PR at Mercy Hospital. Now she writes the award-winning blog Catching Health with Diane Atwood.